Critical Discourse Analysis Of Gender Identities In Cosmetic Video Commercials In Chinese Socio-cultural Context

This study seeks to explore the gender identities of males and of females and thegender relations between them as revealed in video cosmetic commercials in theChinese socio-cultural context. For a long time cosmetics are regarded as the provinceof women. But recent years have seen the emergence of cosmetics for men and theproliferation of cosmetic commercials targeting male consumers. This phenomenonhas aroused the attention to male and female gender images as well as the genderrelationship between both sexes. In light of this background, the author forms the ideaof the present study. Sixty video cosmetic commercials are collected and form a smallcorpus, thirty being male-oriented and thirty female-oriented, for video commercialsis an increasingly common type of advertisements. The corpus of this study consistsof two parts: language discourse and visual images discourse. In order to reveal thehidden gender ideology behind the ads, this research adopts critical discourse analysisas its research perspective and Fairclough’s three-dimensional model as its theoreticaland analytical framework, with the transitivity system of Halliday’s SystemicFunctional Grammar and the representational meaning of Kress and van Leeuwen’sVisual Grammar as its supplementary analytical tools.The research is conducted with three stages and from two modes of the videocommercials: description and interpretation of the textual features of the videoadvertisements, description and interpretation of the visual images of the videocommercials, and explanation of the social-cultural practice of the gender identities ofmales and of females as revealed in the previous two stages. At the first stage, thetransitive system of Systemic Functional Grammar is applied to analyze the language aspect of the ad texts, and the generic intertextuality features of the texts are alsodescribed and interpreted; at the second stage, the three concept of participant, actionand circumstance in the representational meaning of Visual Grammar is applied todescribe and interpret the visual aspect of the video commercial samples; at the thirdstage, the advertising discourse is placed in Chinese socio-cultural context, thedivision of labor by sex theory and differing value system theory are employed toshed some light upon the text and discursive practice of gender ideology.Correspondently, each stage of study is intended to achieve an objective below:1) touncover the male vs. female gender identities shaped respectively in the textualfeature of cosmetic video advertisements,2) to reveal the male vs. female genderidentities contained in the visual images of cosmetic video commercials and3) toexpound the social and cultural practice determinants of this gender ideology andinterpellate the contribution of this ideology to the social and cultural practice.The study finds that males are portrayed as strong and powerful, autonomous andhaving initiative and full control of their life and career, rational and practical, caringabout their appearance and inner world and possessing great prowess. In contrast,women are usually shaped as passive, dependent and weak, unable to makeindependent decisions and take initiative, conceptual and sentimental, irrational,consumerism and caring about their looks. Obviously their gender identities arestereotyped and the stereotypical images reflect the gender relation between malesand females is male dominant over female and female being subordinate to male.These facts are more likely to find their root from the sex division of labor and thediffering value system in Chinese socio-cultural context. The traditional division oflabor by sex prevails in the current Chinese society, characterized by males taking upmajor technical work while females doing minor auxiliary work, which secures menin a dominant position and women in a subordinate one. Meanwhile the conventional differing value system is still raging in Chinese cultural context by which males careabout what they can do whereas females how they appear, and that explains whymales are usually described as proactive capable and professional whereas femalessentimental, supportive and sensitive to their looks. But this gender ideology breedsgender discrimination against females thus it is detrimental to the Chinese society andculture development.The findings prove that gender discrimination prevails in the current Chinesesocio-cultural context and advertising discourse is heavily ideology-laden. Consumers,therefore, should improve their critical language awareness especially theirmultiliteracy, be alert to the hidden ideology behind the ad discourse and resist thesellers’ ideology manipulation. Efforts to eliminate gender inequality are still neededfrom each member of the current Chinese society.